I'm Not Able On My Own
by Akiko Keeper of Sheep
Summary: In which Pavel might be a reincarnated czar, Spock's ears are not quite right, and Jim ships Hikaru/Phil like FedEx, because it shouldn't matter that Phil has leaves if they really love each other. Not as crack-y as it sounds.
1. Prologue

I'm Not Able [On My Own]

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by: stop-the-fading

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Prologue -

"Captain's Log, stardate twenty-two fifty-nine point five five." Jim leaned back in the captain's chair, letting his eyes slide shut wearily. "Our CMO has been missing for fifty-three hours, and we have yet to turn up any new leads as to his location. Best guess remains that the Klingons have taken him into custody in order to obtain information on Starfleet. Science Officer Spock assures me that new refinements made to the long-range sensors will help us widen the search area and retrieve him more quickly."

Pausing, Jim craned his head to look over at where Scotty and Spock were bickering (albeit quietly, since they both undoubtedly remembered what happened last time a disagreement had gotten out of control) before letting his eyes slide over to Nyota.

"Lieutenant Uhura, have you been able to pick up any Klingon transmissions?"

The young woman flicked her ponytail over her shoulder and lifted her chin. "Ah...captain. Yes. Speaking. They're speaking, and...um...yes. I'm..." Her nose scrunched, the only outward sign of frustration she gave, which Jim thought was very much an improvement on her temper when they'd first met. "I'm..."

Poking at the floor with his toes, Jim inched his chair around in a slow circle, taking in the entire bridge, giving Nyota time to find her words. He'd learned the hard way that she didn't much appreciate him butting in. It threw off her concentration, anyway, which defeated the entire purpose of cajoling her to speak in the first place. Jim was nothing if not considerate of his crew and their needs.

"Listening," she finished slowly, enunciating the word clearly as she wrote it out on her small notepad.

Jim nodded. "Keep on listening, Lieutenant. We may get lucky."

"Keptin," Pavel cried, sitting straight up in his seat and adjusting his paper hat (Jim could never bring himself to call it a crown in his head, but he made sure to always do so when he referred to it out loud, since it meant a lot to his ensign). "Lewels six and sewen are reporting Klingon intruders!"

"Uhura, sound shipwide alarms!" Leaping from the chair, Jim ignored Scotty's irritated curse when it rolled back and rammed into his knees. "Have the security teams surround and subdue the intruders! Phasers on stun!"

Nyota sighed. "Yeah."

"I vill call on my Imperial Guard, yes, Keptin?"

Jim shrugged. "Sure thing, Czar Ensign. We could use all the help we can get."

"Captain," Spock interrupted, holding up one hand to silence Scotty, who was still rubbing his knees and whimpering a bit, "I feel His Majesty's guards would be put to better use as a reconnaissance team, scouring the planet's surface for our Chief Medical Officer. Starfleet regulations clearly state that only official Starfleet personnel should be involved in the capture of an enemy."

Which Jim knew, since he'd written up that regulation before he'd even met Spock, but it was always good to be reminded. Knowing the rules was very important - otherwise, you might forget to break them.

Nodding to himself, Jim wagged a finger at Spock. "Very good remembering the regulations, Mr. Spock, but these Klingons might have information as to our CMO's whereabouts. Therefore, we must use all the assets available to us to capture them. Speaking of which, we should go do that. Capture them, I mean. Mr. Sulu!"

Hikaru, seated at the controls, tilted his head in a way which, to most people, would seem dismissive. Jim knew, though, that it was closer than most human beings got to being acknowledged by Hikaru Sulu.

"You have the conn."

Hikaru didn't reply. Not to Jim, anyway, but he did mutter "control is an illusion" to the potted gardenia balanced carefully on his knees. Jim wracked his brain for a moment before grinning.

"You're his backup, Ensign Phil," he said in the general direction of one of the larger blossoms. "Keep an eye on him, okay?"

He thought maybe Hikaru's smile was actually for him, not for Phil, which was even rarer than the head tilt, and it added a bit of skip to his step as he lead his crew down the corridor. The skip turned into a sort of skitter, though, when Jim had to dodge around a corner to avoid being seen by the pair of Klingons marching down the hall.

Jim narrowed his eyes at them, taking careful aim with his phaser, and stunned them both. He didn't bother to watch them fall, instead gesturing to the rest of the crew to follow and continuing to Level Six.

Jim liked Level Six - that was where the mess hall was. He was pretty sure they were serving lasagna for dinner later. He always liked it when they served foods that required utensils, mostly because he got to show off his fork. Subtly, of course. Not a lot of the crew got to use a fork, and Jim didn't like to be mean about it. Still, after the Romulan incident where the Ambassador's aide tried to poison him with a cyanide pill in his custard, Jim was always very reassured by the presence of something that could, in a pinch, be used as a weapon during mealtimes.

"I'm not supposed to be here," an angry voice cut across Jim's custard musings. "Just give me my god damned pants and let me out!"

"Leonard-"

"That's Doctor McCoy to you, you quack!"

Jim peered around the corner, lips pursed in a dramatic pout. Two more Klingons were flanking the shouting man, who was doing his best to stare down a high-ranking Romulan official. A few months ago, Jim had still been slightly off-put by the concept of Klingons doing the bidding of Romulans, but lately he'd come to appreciate the dastardly brilliance of that alliance. He could never be sure, though, that the Klingons weren't planning some sort of nefarious uprising that would topple not only Starfleet, but the Romulan Empire, as well, all in one fell swoop. Klingons were tricky like that.

Regardless, he had, indeed, stumbled upon the location of their missing CMO - and on his very own ship! Foolish, he thought to himself as he signalled to the rest of the crew with a flurry of intricate hand signs. But then, the Romulan-Klingon Alliance had always been somewhat overconfident.

"Captain's Log supplemental - the Klingons and the Romulans have clearly underestimated myself and my crew greatly, for they have committed a grave error - attempting to take control of the Enterprise and, in so doing, returning to us our lost Chief Medical Officer, Doctor Leonard "Bones" McCoy."

Jim peeked back around the corner, eyes narrowing when one of the Klingon's sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Want me to take care of it?"

"No," the Romulan replied wearily. "Leave it alone. The last thing we need is to get him agitated."

Jim snorted (covertly). Clearly, the doctor was already agitated, although he was looking more confused by the second. His bewilderment seemed to work to the advantage of his captors, who directed him into his room with little fuss. When they emerged, followed by a shout of, "this is wrongful imprisonment and I'm gonna sue your asses," Jim leapt out from his hiding spot and, his crew behind him, held the intruders at phaser-point.

"You are in violation of our treaty and have clearly disregarded all concepts of the Neutral Zone! I'm going to have to ask you to come quietly."

The Klingons sighed again, and the Romulan slipped his hands slowly out of his pockets and held his hands up in the universal don't-shoot gesture. "James," he said calmly. "We've talked about this. We aren't enemies."

"Don't make me have Czar Ensign Chekov recall his Imperial Guard to help subdue you," Jim sneered.

"It would be logical to simply surrender at this point," Spock pointed out helpfully in his usual unruffled manner. "You have returned our Chief Medical Officer, who seems no worse for wear save for the unfortunate absence of his trousers, and it is very likely that the Federation officials will be lenient with you."

"How about," one of the Klingons (the blond one, Jim noticed, who had taken his fork away once because he'd tried to defend himself with it against the Gorn that had stolen one of his chicken nuggets), "we call this one a draw, and we get in our spaceships and leave, and no one gets phased."

"Stunned," Scotty corrected, half-hiding behind Nyota.

"Right. That."

Jim considered his options. "Would you make sure all remaining intruders are removed from my ship?"

"Sure, Jim. No more intruders. We'll all leave you alone."

Pursing his lips again, Jim relaxed and holstered his phaser. "Okay."

Nodding slowly, the three intruders turned and walked away. Jim grinned, reaching out to bump his fist against Pavel's. "Another successful outcome in the ongoing battle against the oppressive forces of the Klingon and Romulan people! Good work, everyone!"

"We...we should...um...rec...um..." Nyota's lips moved slowly around the word she was contemplating, "...rescue."

"Right!" And with much fanfare, Jim burst through the doorway and into the holding cell. "Hey, Bones! We're here to rescue you!"

There was a brief but intense silence, during which Jim met the eyes of his CMO and realized that, yes, this man was his best friend in the universe. There was an immediate connection, as there had always been and would always be. This man would follow him to the stars and beyond.

Then the doctor groaned, curling up on his side on his cot, back to the door. "I don't know who you are, although I can take a guess as to what brand of crazy got you stuck here, and if you don't get outta my room right the hell now, I'm gonna kick your god damned ass."

Jim frowned, plucking awkwardly at his scrub top. He didn't like the kinds of shivers he got when people said weird things like that. It felt too much like fear, and James Tiberius Kirk had no room for fear in his life.

He could feel his crew shifting awkwardly behind him, and he knew they could tell he was thrown off. They'd long since stopped saying weird things like that around him, which was good, because a captain should never show discomfort in front of his crew. Jim wished he knew how to stop.

"That's not...that's not right," Jim murmured, crossing his arms and glowering at the man in the cot. "That's not right, and you know it. Bones, c'mon. You need to come with us so we can make sure the Klingons didn't hurt you."

There was a snort from the otherwise motionless lump.

"Bones-"

"My name ain't Bones, kid. And I ain't been hurt by Clingwrap or whatever."

"Klingons," Scotty stressed insistently.

"Right. So you can piss off."

Jim swallowed, tilting his face towards the floor, because captains aren't supposed to cry in front of their crew, either. "C'mon, Bones. We're best friends, remember? Or...or...oh." Jim brightened, suddenly understanding. "I bet their clumsy Klingon mind-penatrate-y thingies scrambled stuff around. You don't remember me, huh?"

He heard a soft breath of relief behind him, and the sound of a paper tricorn being straightened again, and he smiled. "That's okay, Bones. We'll help you until you do remember, okay?"

There was another silence, this one rather more annoyed than the last, before the doctor sighed heavily. "Sure, kid. Okay. Can I get some sleep now?"

"Sure thing, Bones! Okay, everyone," he said, pivoting on his heel so fast he nearly knocked Spock over, "let's head back to the bridge and leave orbit! I've had enough of this planet."

It might have been his imagination (which did strange things sometimes, usually the sorts of things that gave him that fearful tingle that he so loathed), but he could have sworn he heard his best friend muttering as they left.

"I know the feelin', kid."


	2. I'm A Doctor, Not A Spaceman!

Chapter One: I'm A Doctor, Not A Spaceman!

Leonard McCoy, M.D., sighed to himself.

It was a long-suffering sigh. The sort that's more habit than anything else, born of countless instances in which the sigh-er was, through no fault of their own, forced into such ridiculous circumstances that the sudden exhalation was not only expected, but damn near necessary to maintain a level of calm.

It was that, Leonard mused, or strangle Jim Kirk.

Joshua Fleet Behavioral Health Center (or, as Jim liked to call it, Starfleet) was not going to be on Leonard's top ten vacation spots. Ever. It wasn't the fault of the facility, really. It was clean, humane, and up-to-date, and employed some of the most effective psychologists and behavioral specialists in the world. It was, for a mental institution, very nice.

It was still a mental institution, though, no matter how they tried to phrase it. And Leonard, being a doctor, was fairly certain that he was required by cosmic law to be a terrible patient, complete with blatant condescension, refusal to accept medication, and at least one psychologist per day labelled a quack.

It wasn't Leonard's fault, really. It was all just part of being a doctor in the care of other doctors.

What he hated most about being there, though, wasn't the lack of privacy or the lack of dignity or the lack of shoelaces. No, what Leonard hated most was James T. Kirk (and crew).

The kid was nuts. Which, granted, wasn't a very politically correct thing for Leonard to think, but that didn't make it any less true.

"Mixed-type delusional disorder," the young man who simply went by 'Spock' had informed him quietly over breakfast that first morning. "Cause unknown."

Leonard had hummed to himself, feeling a tiny niggle of curiosity for the first time in a long time. It was pleasantly surprising, even if he hadn't had the motivation to follow through with it. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, he'd mused. Jim Kirk wasn't his responsibility, and even if he had been, Leonard wasn't a psychologist.

You fuck up enough as a physician, McCoy, he'd reminded himself as he poked at his tasteless eggs. Bad enough fucking up someone physically - that can sometimes heal. You really want to try your hand at leaving mental scars, too?

Jim Kirk was, Leonard thought, a very good example of why they should let Leonard leave. Here was a kid who was genuinely sick, who needed help, and they were wasting time and resources on Leonard. It was another unhappy reminder, every time he saw the guy, with his too-blue eyes and his genuinely-friendly smile.

'Bones'. He called Leonard 'Bones', said they were best friends, said they'd have all sorts of adventures in space. He was nice to Leonard, who wanted nothing more that to grab the idiot and shake him until he stopped wasting all that niceness on someone who didn't deserve it.

If you hadn't failed, nobody'd be wasting anything on you. Why are you even here? You managed just fine when you were killing other people - figures you'd screw up being a murderer when it might have actually done some good.

Spock - who, Leonard had discovered, was never very far from Jim - had made a point of cornering the older man at the cafeteria table and explaining Jim to him. Leonard hadn't wanted Jim to be explained. He had kind of hoped that whatever was scrambled in the kid's brain would erase their uncomfortable meeting the evening before from his memory, but apparently, he wasn't going to be that lucky.

"Jim likes people," Spock had stated simply, scooping eggs into his mouth and chewing methodically whenever he paused to think. "Especially people who are alone, as he regards himself to be. it comforts him somewhat, to draw us into his delusions."

Leonard had thought about asking why they played along, why they went to such lengths to enable his delusions, but he hadn't quite been able to bring himself to care. Really, he'd just wanted to be left in his room to sleep until the world stopped sucking, but apparently, that wasn't part of his 'treatment plan'.

Socialization, the orderly had called it, as though Leonard was a disobedient puppy that barked too much at the other dogs.

Spock had answered his unasked question, anyway, leaving Leonard to wonder just how transparent he was.

"I was the first of us to meet Jim. I have been here for several years, and when Jim was brought in, he immediately formed an attachment to me, saying that we were destined to be friends. When he found out the truth about me, I fear it may have only entrenched his delusions in his mind more deeply."

Off his bewildered expression, Spock had tilted his head. "I am not human, you see. Not entirely. I am half-Vulcan."

"Vulcan." Leonard had sat back, picking his biscuit into little pieces, crumbling some of them distractedly. "Okay, then."

"Vulcans are a race of aliens, Doctor. My father, upon visiting Earth to learn human ways, impregnated my mother shortly before he departed for the Vulcan homeworld."

"Makes sense," Leonard had offered, because to someone suffering from species dysphoria, it certainly would make sense. "Wasn't a nice thing to do, though."

"Perhaps not, but I'm certain there was a logical reason behind his decision to do so."

"What, to knock your mama up, or to leave?"

"Both," Spock had replied primly.

They had wandered the halls a bit after breakfast in silence, and Leonard has actually hoped that he might be able to return to his room without any further talk about Jim Kirk.

Alas.

"I believed for some time that he was mocking my predicament," Spock had explained. "Many before him have done so, and still more refused to believe me at all. I have never understood this aspect of the human mind - to so readily disbelieve the truth in favor of lies for the sake of convenience. To refuse to even entertain possibilities. It is illogical."

"Humans usually are," Leonard had muttered.

"But as I became better aquainted with him, I came to understand his mind, such as is possible. He is...complicated. And very human. And I suppose, having seen how distraught he becomes when his delusions are challenged, I simply felt it necessary to do what I could to assist him, and to prevent him from inflicting damage upon himself and others."

And that had been about when, leaping out from around a corner and tuck-and-rolling to a halt at Leonard's feet, Jim Kirk had grabbed hold of the doctor and dragged him into his world.

So far, Leonard thought sourly as the paper tricorn the Russian kid wore bobbed into view, breaking him from his thoughts, the bridge was Leonard's least favorite place in the entire facility. This was partly because the small room it was set in (usually used for group therapy, ironically enough, Leonard believed) was covered in the most cloyingly pathetic motivational posters known to man. Mostly, though, it was because there were never fewer than five people 'on the bridge' at any time when he was there, which meant he was surrounded by some of the most difficult people he'd ever known whenever he was around.

And he was around a lot. It didn't seem to matter where he holed up, Jim would find him and haul him, metaphorically kicking and screaming, on whatever adventures suited the younger man that day. On any given day, he spent probably ninety percent of his free time listening to Sulu sing to his gardenia and watching Scotty (who, he'd learned from Spock, was actually not Scottish, and no one was sure where the accent had come from) pull apart chairs and put the legs back on the wrong way around.

Today, they were allegedly circling an ice-covered proto-planet (whatever that was), trying to make contact with a Starfleet scientific outpost. Leonard had snarked harshly about studying alien penguins, which had backfired horribly because Jim had congratulated him on guessing right. The kid had then proceeded to outline the protocols for adopting alien life-forms as pets and had made Leonard draw an anatomical diagram of the alien penguin for the xenobiology database.

That might not have been so bad (it gave him something to do that would distract him from the way Sulu was caressing the gardenia), except then Spock had insisted on adjusting Leonard's design because "stalk-form optical structures would be highly unlikely to have evolved in this case, as they would be more susceptible to extreme cold temperatures and therefore a point of weakness".

Eventually, Leonard had given up on the alien penguin, allowing Spock to doodle over it and list its specifications while the doctor took up the orange crayon and proceeded to draw spaceships. For some reason, they'd been on his mind.

He was now moving on to drawing an alien robot that was mostly a giant gray globe with two long, thin legs, and the Russian kid, Pavel, leaned over to look at his drawing.

"You forgot ze lasers," he said in a regal sort of tone, pointing dramatically. "Zere must be lasers."

Rolling his eyes, Leonard plucked up the red crayon and drew thin red lines sparking out from its eyes. "Good enough?"

"Da. Lasers," the kid continued, lifting his chin and adjusting his hat, "vere inwented in Russia. I commissioned my secret sciences diwision to vork on zem to help prewent a rebellion."

Leonard considered telling the kid that pronouncing his vees as double-yous was more of a Polish thing than a Russian thing. He added a few more lasers instead, which made the young man grin.

"Hey," a soft voice spoke above Leonard's head. "That's really good!"

"Uh," Leonard glanced up at Jim, brow furrowing. "Thanks?"

"That's the most life-like drawing of the Enterprise ever!" The younger man leaned heavily on Leonard's shoulder and pointed. "I especially like how you put in the dorsal phaser array. I don't know if that's the right color, but it's closer than Scotty got. He drew them green once." Jim made a face at the man, who snorted and went back to trying to build a seven-legged chair.

Shrugging, Leonard gestured at Pavel with his crayon. "It was the kid's idea."

"That's because he's a genius," Jim whispered loudly, still draped over Leonard's shoulder. It was odd, the doctor mused, how very used to Jim's complete disregard for personal space he'd gotten in the span of a week. "Speaking of genius, Bones, how hard do you think it would be to mutate Phil into a more...uh...sentient life-form?"

Leonard sighed. "Can't be done."

"But-"

"Nope."

"Yeah, but-"

"Not happening." He poked Jim on the nose with the crayon before going back to signing his name to his masterpiece. "Leave Sulu and his plant alone."

"You're no fun, Bones," Jim whined, curling both arms around Leonard's shoulders and pressing his face against the older man's neck. "Why are you no fun?"

"Captain," Nyota interrupted, setting down her notepad and scanning what she'd written. "Contact."

When Jim had whirled away, leaving Leonard strangely chilled and not-so-strangely relieved, the woman had offered him a small grin. With a bit of effort, Leonard managed to return it.

He could not get out of this funny farm fast enough.


End file.
